Life
1927- ; b. Cork; son of Methodist minister and missionary; lived first five years in India, ed. in school in Ireland and at TCD; retired from Snr. Lecturer in English Dept. at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1983 [var. since 1970], and returned to Ireland; composer with pieces performed by several orchestras; wrote reviews for in Guardian, 1970s; suffered loss of his wife Muriel by drowning, 1975, and memorialised in Heartwood; issued Collected Poems (Lagan 2002) and further collections Under the Rainbow (2003) and Letters to Enid (2004). DIW

CommentaryRory Brennan, review of Richard Kell, Collected Poems, intro. Fred Johnston (Lagan Press), in Books Ireland (Summer 2002). Brennan writes, disillusion is one of the key tones [sic] in Kells oeuvre. But is no facile or repetitive disillusion Rather it is an intelligent, almost researched, anticipated, stoic disillusoin with which Kell faces the pleastures and punishments of love, inexorable physical decline, the drifting seasons, the death of those deeply loved. (p.157.)

John Greening, short notice of Collected Poems, 1962-1993 (Lagan Press [2002]): cites fine long poem, The Dancers, concerning the effects of preachers in Cornwall, and marking a key-change in the collection [quotes]: shaping some argument about / my craft, my fathers mission, and the Word; also Heartwood, moving 15-part poem in memory of his wife
Muriel, drowned in 1975; notes shocking directness and no-nonsense tone; tendency towards prosaic in longer poems; usually taut; thoughtful balancing of esoteric, ecological and domestic concerns. Initially remarks that, though born in Co. Cork, there is not much of Ireland about his Collected Poems.